Mary Sue
by Insanity-5pak
Summary: Note: Not what you might think. The gang must deal with a real, personal Mary Sue that threatens to take over their lives and steal their stories. T rating just to be safe.
1. The Girl From Beyond

_Note: Ok, this one is a little different from what you might think so stick with me. It's basically a Mary Sue story (i.e. where an original character is more or less thrust into the story and steals the spotlight of the main group) BUT with a slight twist. Instead of honoring the overbalanced, unimaginative Mary Sue, the Lyoko gang finds her intrusion in their lives wrong and unwelcome. And do something about it. So whether you hate or love Mary Sues, you should like this one._

**Mary Sue**

**Chapter One**

**The Girl From Beyond**

Odd peeked out from behind his rock barricade to snatch a glimpse at their opponents but quickly jerked his head back behind the safe, stone shield just before a laser shot skipped off the edge of the rock where his face had just been. It had only been a second's look, but it had offered all Odd needed to know. They were way, way outnumbered.

"Jeremy, when did you say our vehicles were going to arrive, cause there's a wall of Blocks still standing between us and the tower just in case you've forgotten?"

Jeremy's slightly sarcastic voice sounded, almost hollow-like, through Odd's head, an effect that was still really disturbing even after all the times they'd been on Lyoko.

"Oh really? I hadn't noticed Odd, let me look into it…. Hmm, looks like you're right. There really is a wall of Blocks there. And as for your vehicles, they're-"

There was a small electronic _bloob_ and Jeremy sighed.

"Uh, actually, I don't think you're going to be getting those vehicles Odd."

Another laser shot slammed into the rock wall at Odd's back, as if to compliment the insane information. Odd opened his mouth to yell out in disbelief at Jeremy's statement, but it was Ulrich, thirty feet away and crouched behind a similar rock barricade alongside Yumi, who beat him to the punch.

"What? You're kidding right Jeremy? There's too many of those things over there for us to handle on foot!"

In the real world, Jeremy looked over the information on his computer screen and groaned, shaking his head in hopelessness.

"Sorry guys, but Xana managed to hack into the computer and screw around with the vehicles' data while I wasn't looking. Probably while I was having to deal with Milly."

Jeremy glanced over into the corner of the computer room where the still unconscious Milly, usually the happy, energetic news reporter of the school, was lying curled up on the floor. He subconsciously placed a hand over the large bite mark on his shoulder that the young fifth grader had given him, under Xana's influence of course. Jeremy had to admit, their nemesis was becoming more and more diabolical and down right nasty the longer they fought.

A pounding noise came from upstairs, on the ground floor of the factory, reminding Jeremy that Milly wasn't the only fifth grader Kadic had. They had to hurry, before the "little ones" managed to reach the computer room.

"Jeremy?"

"Huh, what?" Jeremy replied, snapping back to reality, not even fully aware that he had drifted off.

Aelita's voice floated through the speakers, "What do you suggest we do? We're pretty outnumbered here. I'm not sure how far from these rocks we would even be able to get without being... blown away."

Rubbing the stinging bite on his shoulder, Jeremy tried to see a way around or through the impenetrable wall of Blocks that had his friends cornered. He subconsciously noted how overdone the whole scenario seemed for Xana. The virus normally only placed a few monsters around a tower at a time and would send backup if necessary, but not today. And then there was the Scyphozoa to think about. Where was it? Wasn't now a perfect opportunity to simply come at them from behind and take Aelita?

"Never question a blessing, Jeremy," he mumbled to himself, and then louder, "I don't know. I'm not sure really how to attack this. The whole cliff is cut in half by the Blocks and their bodies form a perfect barricade. You're just going to have to… go through. That's all I can figure right now."

There was a moment of silence broken only by the pounding upstairs as the team digested the information, assessing the impossible situation and trying to think if such a move was even possible no doubt. Finally Yumi was the one to break the silence.

"Ok Jeremy, we'll try. Right Ulrich?"

With less enthusiasm Ulrich replied, "Yeah."

Suddenly, the factory filled with the sound of the metal elevator doors tearing open. The fifth graders had gotten through, finally managing to scrap their way through the metal shutter like the pack of rapid animals they had basically become. It was only a matter of time before… no, best not to think about that now.

"If you guys are going, go. I've only got a minute or so before our rapid classmates get in here and eat me alive. I can't lock this bottom door against them, so I'll be wide open once they get down here."

Back on Lyoko the four friends quickly devised a plan of attack, having to shout directions to one another and hope that the Blocks couldn't hear and understand them.

"Odd," Yumi called, "run out and distract the Blocks. Then Ulrich and I will follow you and-" a laser hit the edge of Yumi's rock wall, sending a shower of digital dust over her, "and try to clear an opening for Aelita. If you can draw their fire and we can make a hole for her, then she should be able to reach the tower."

"What?" he shouted back in disbelief, "Why me?"

"Because you could probably stay out of their reach longer than the rest of us, especially with such little room to move."

Odd hesitate, glancing unsurely first at Yumi then in the direction of the Block barricade. Finally, he returned, "Ok, but if I die, be sure to-" another laser hit the rocks, drowning out the rest of his words, and then Odd rolled out into the open. And the air filled with the sound of lasers firing as all the Blocks brought their weapons to bare on the tumbler.

For a moment, Yumi almost forgot about the plan. She was almost entranced watching Odd dance through a storm of red lasers as every Block in the wall bore down on him. He managed to stay just a few inches, possibly just centimeters, ahead of the firestorm, rolling and tumbling just barely out of their reach. It was an intricate dance that Yumi would have never even thought Odd capable of performing.

Yumi shook her head and turned to Aelita.

"Aelita, wait until there's an opening, then go!"

Then she turned to Ulrich, who had already drawn his sword and looked impatient to start.

"Ready?"

He nodded.

"Let's go."

Jeremy heard a sizzling as the elevator door's electronic control panel was destroyed, and then a hiss as the doors open. The hapless computer genius turned around to see dozens of pairs of small, emotionless eyes staring back at him from the elevator shaft.

"Oh no…" he muttered, and then darted out of chair and ran for the ladder at the back of the room. But before he could reach it, sneaky, perfectly conscious Milly grabbed him by the leg and jerked him down to the floor, and all of Kadic's insane fifth grade began to pile into the room, hands reaching for the kicking, stunned Jeremy.

On Lyoko, Odd managed to keep most of the Blocks' attention divided long enough for Yumi to blow one of them up with her fans, creating at least some kind of opening for Aelita. But while looking over his shoulder to see how they were doing, a laser slammed into Odd's shoulder, and the class clown knew he was dead.

The blast threw him off balance and the laser storm that he had been avoiding so skillfully caught up with him before he could get his bearings back and ripped him apart. Before being divirtualized in the hail of fire, Odd shouted, "Aelita, run now!"

The pink haired girl came out from behind her rock wall with her force shield up and ran for the single, three foot opening Yumi and Ulrich had managed to make for her. Her two remaining friends fell into defensive positions, fighting to keep her alive and the path open long enough for Aelita to slip through.

The Blocks' fire was divided between three targets, but it was still nearly too overwhelming to break through. Aelita deflected shots away from her with her force shield as fast as she could, ducking to avoid those she couldn't block. Yumi and Ulrich stood on both sides of the opening, using their own weapons to block the storm of lasers coming at them.

"I've only got one shot," she murmured, deflecting another blast heading for her face. The opening grew closer and closer as the hailstorm grew thicker and thicker.

In the computer room, Jeremy was being buried under a pile of small, biting, clawing bodies. He had his hands wrapped protectively over his neck, but the fifth graders were still ripping into him like rats through cardboard. He shouted, "Aelita, hurry!" as someone, Milly he suspected for some reason, bit down hard on his fingers, grinding her sharp, tiny teeth together against the straining bones there.

"Hang on, Jeremy, I'm almost-"

A shot hit her in the leg just as Aelita managed to reach the opening. The leg came out from under her and her delicate balance was offset. She was going down. She was going to crash. Time seemed almost to slow as Aelita felt herself fall, as the ground rushed up towards her and the firestorm raged all around her.

_Oh no. I've screwed up. I missed the opening. I missed. He's going to die._

The ground grew closer. Aelita began to panic. She had to stay up. She couldn't fall down, there was no time. If she fell, the Blocks would kill her and there'd be no way to save Jeremy.

The pebble littered, pseudo-sand floor rushed up to kiss her and Aelita… slammed her palms into it and pushed off with her arms, trying her hardest to imitate the acrobatics she had seen Yumi perform so often and so well.

Aelita's arms groaned and screamed from the unexpected strain, and she was sure that not a few muscles would have snapped had she tried this in the real world, but she managed to push her body far enough to flip over her hands and come back down on her own feet. She landed wobbly and unsteadily, but still standing. Before the Blocks could turn to bare on their target again, Aelita ran for the tower, knowing she would make it, she had to make it.

The monsters' laser storm came at Aelita again, only from behind this time. Yumi and Ulrich were on the wrong side of the wall, and couldn't do anything but watch as the red cloud of superheated light shot across the air towards Aelita just as she spread her arms to enter the tower.

_It's going to be close_.

Just before she entered the tower, just as her body began to pass through the protective layer of 1s and 0s disguised as a white, metallic wall, and into the safety (both for her and everyone else) of the tower, Aelita felt something grab her and jerk her up and away from the monolith. The firestorm of lasers slammed uselessly into the side of the tower a second later,a second _after_ she would have passed through into the tower, as Aelita floated up and away from her goal.

"What's going on?" she said, the first thought to enter her mind being that the Scyphozoa, taller than normal judging by how high off the ground she was, had finally decided to grace them with its presence. However, Aelita looked up to see that she was dead wrong this time.

Instead of a large, jellyfish, Aelita saw a girl, dressed in strange clothing and holding a large lance, carrying her through the air by the back of her shirt.

"Don't worry, I've got you!" the girl shouted.

And that was the first thing that Aelita heard Sarah Minstrait say to her. Little did the pink haired girl realize, however, was that she would come to despise this strange, young girl more than she had ever thought humanly possible.

_Note: All right, there you are ladies and gents. A little long, but that's our new Mary Sue. If you come to hate, then I say thank you, that's what I was going for. If you come to love her, well... I don't know. R&R please and tell me what you, the infallible judges, think._


	2. Red Head

**Chapter Two**

**Red Head**

The girl with the lance flew, glided actually, around to the back of the tower and released Aelita, dropping her roughly to the ground. The pink haired, elfish girl turned and asked, "Who are you? How'd you-"

Holding up her hand, the girl, wearing what appeared to be light, feminine plate mail and a helmet, out of which poked strands of short, red hair, and holding a large, ornate lance, stopped her and replied, "Don't ask. Just get in there ok?" And without waiting for a reply, she flew around to the front of the tower without the aid of any wings, lance brandished and shouting something that could only be the war cry of a young child who has watched too many cartoons.

"Hiiyah!"

Aelita stood in a semi-trance, her mind still trying to make some sense of what had just occurred. When a laser flew by the side of the tower, snapping her out of her daze, she finished her mission and ran inside the tower.

In the computer room, Jeremy managed to crawl partway out of the pile of still clutching, rat-like fifth graders and reached for his computer chair, desperately trying to get to the keyboard. The grabbing hands of the children left long scratches and cuts down Jeremy's back, tearing through his shirt and skin as he pulled himself upwards towards the controls.

"Hurry… Aelita…" he reached with one hand for the enter key, hoping his friend would make it.

Aelita flipped upward through the tower, wishing not for the first time that there were a faster way to the top controls, and landed on the upper platform. She pressed her hand on the control panel there, entering in the Lyoko code and watched as the tower deactivated.

"Jeremy? Jeremy is everything ok?"

Jeremy, his legs still stuck under a pile of now collapsed kids, laughed tiredly, although it hurt his throat to do so, and said, "Sure… I'm fine Aelita. Now, ready to return to the past?"

Without waiting for an answer, Jeremy pressed the enter key and felt his body begin to stitch itself back up.

* * *

"Guys, did you get a chance to see that weird girl on Lyoko?"

Odd looked up from the soda can he had been drinking from two hours "ago" which had just reappeared in his hand, and asked, "What girl?"

"This weird, flying girl with a lance on Lyoko. You didn't see her?" Aelita replied.

He shook his head with a frown, having no idea why there'd be anyone else on Lyoko, let alone a flying girl, but Ulrich and Yumi exchanged knowing glances.

"We saw her," Ulrich said, "Do you know who she was Aelita?"

Aelita merely shook her head and turned to Jeremy.

"What about you Jeremy. You didn't see anything about her on the computer?"

Jeremy smiled slightly and scratched the back of his head.

"I was… a little busy at the time, but I don't remember seeing anything if that helps."

Frowning, Aelita scratched at her chin and shook her head, saying, "Not really. Who was that person?"

As if in answer, a girl that none of the five had seen before walked up to the drink machine they were gathered around, deposited a few coins in the slot and began to scan the buttons, looking for her choice of soda. The first thing Aelita noticed was that not only was the girl uncannily familiar, but she hadn't been at this spot the last time they were here. She was a change in the past that they hadn't made.

The girl herself looked about Yumi's age, with bobbed, red hair and a developing tan. She was about as tall as Ulrich and wore a purple blouse and a black skirt. Looking at her Aelita found herself immediately trying to place her in the suit of the flying girl from earlier simply because she had never before seen this student. Before Aelita could stop herself from trying to pin down this new girl as the person on Lyoko the red head turned to Jeremy, smiling slightly and said, "Sorry it took me so long to get Aelita around the back of the tower. I didn't think it would take me forever to fly over to where she was. My bad."

There was a moment of silence, during which everyone stared with fixed eyes at the strange girl who had just so casually mentioned a secret that no one was suppose to know of and that they had spent months fighting to keep hidden. Aelita felt a strange sensation begin to rise in her mind as she eyed this mysterious, smiling girl. For some reason it felt to her as if this girl had just this very moment actually inserted herself into all of their lives without warning and without cause. Something about this girl… bothered her. But what?

Jeremy somehow managed to look both serious and shocked all at once as he replied, "What? You know about Lyoko?"

The girl merely smiled all the wider, revealing such white, shining teeth that for a moment they almost appeared made of something beside calcium and nerve.

"Of course. I've known about Lyoko for a while actually. I just haven't gotten on when you guys were there yet. I didn't want you to know about me."

With a clunk Odd's soda can, still half-full, landed in the garbage can nearby. The spike-haired boy looked prepared to say something but Aelita beat him to the punch. No doubt the questions were piling up in all of them, but something just felt... wrong right now and she had to ask this.

"What were you doing there? Before we," she gestured towards herself and her friends, "got to the tower. Where were you and how come we couldn't see you before then."

The smile on the girl's face dipped slightly, covering her brilliant, white teeth, but her face still held that strange, knowing look. She was hiding something maybe, but what could it be? And why did she bother Aelita so much?

With a shrug, she replied, "I was just exploring, that's all. I'm still kind of new to this whole Lyoko thing, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it."

A bell rang, signaling the end of break. The other students outside began to migrate indoors, some quickly and in a hurry not to miss their next class, some more slowly than other. The laughing throng disappearing inside seemed to go unnoticed by the self-titled "Lyoko warriors" and the new girl. Before allowing Aelita to reply, in fact, almost seeming to cut off her coming reply, the girl started walking off towards the school. As she left the vending machine area, she said, "Guess I'll see you guys after school. I can tell we have a lot to discuss huh?"

Her pace seemed to quicken just slightly, almost as if she wanted to get away from the five still stunned friends so they couldn't say anything more. Aelita wanted to shout after her, but all the words on her lips were too questionable to be shouting in public. She had nothing to say, or at least that she could say, to this odd, impossible girl who's very way of walking made her skin break out in goosebumps. The way her body moved. There was just something strange about it. Everything about this girl just seemed to have some subtle, indistinct wrongness about it.

Odd was the one to come up with a reply, shouting at the girl's back, "You got it girl. Meet ya there," ending the declaration with a quick clicking of his tongue. His speech was surprisingly sarcastic, especially for Odd. Normally the only girl he was really sarcastic with was Sissy, and that had taken a little time to start. Aelita looked over towards her short, svelt friend and realized he must be feeling it too. The strange, wrongness about the girl.

The red headed girl stopped, turned back to look at them and for a moment, Aelita thought she saw that her smile had faded. She looked almost… confused, as if she hadn't really expected them to exchange any parting words. However her sunny, strange little grin quickly popped back up, if had been gone at all really, and she spoke in the same happy, patient tone as before.

"Right. And by the way, my name is Sarah. Sarah Minstrait."

With that she walked off, leaving the five warriors to watch her go and question just what had happened. And how. They didn't have time to exchange words. Instead, they settled on confused, catious glances and headed off to class.


	3. Hello Neighbor

Note: Wow, the final run of the school year has LEVELED me! I have to apologize once again to you guys. Sorry it took me so long to finish this one, but like I said, school has been totally life sucking. But Christmas break is finally here and hopefully I'll be able to really get some work done.

**Chapter Three**

**Hello Neighbor**

Jeremy didn't actually expect to see the young red headed girl again during school that day. He had simply assumed she'd be more likely to run into Yumi since they both looked about the same age. However, when the computer wiz walked into his Math class instead of finding Ulrich on the right of his seat at their combined table, he found the girl sitting there, smiling ghostly up at him even as he walked through the door.

Walking over to their shared desk Jeremy dropped his books loudly on the table, surprised to find that this unexpected happenstance had really set something off inside of him. For some odd reason, finding this girl sitting so serenely and comfortably, so… purposely was the only word that seemed to really fit, in Ulrich's seat sparked a feeling of pure rage inside of Jeremy, the likes of which were only reserved for Xana. And maybe Sissi.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the still grinning girl, again shocked at just how very little control he felt he still had over his own body. In fact, it almost felt as if his thoughts were being… pushed into his mind. Perhaps he was actually a little sick today.

The girl, either ignoring or simply not seeing Jeremy's obvious anger or lack of control, shrugged and replied in that sweet, innocent, weird tone, "Waiting for class to start. What about you Jeremy?"

He flinched at his own name. From that girl's mouth, rolling over her shining, plastic-like teeth, that familiar title just sounded so false and alien to him. Everything about this girl seemed false and alien to him. The girl seemed to notice his movement and giggled whimsically, hiding those fake teeth behind one of her hands as she did so.

"Jeez Jeremy, chill out. It's not like I'm planning on biting you or anything. Have a seat, you dummie."

Glancing for the first time at the table behind them, Jeremy saw Odd and Ulrich seated side by side. Neither looked any better than he felt, both staring untrustingly at Sarah. It was obvious that he wasn't the only one who felt uneasy around this girl, but when Jeremy looked at the other students around the room, he saw that no one else, not even nosy Sissi or Jeremy's self proclaimed rival Herv were looking his way. No one had given the new girl any notice at all, except for him and his friends. Why was that? And if we're asking questions, then why not ask why exactly Sarah set off such uneasy feelings and suspicious thoughts in him?

"-sit down?"

Shaking his head, Jeremy realized Sarah was patting the seat next to hers, beckoning him to have a seat. With some reluctance, Jeremy took the seat, trying to suppress the strange feelings inside him. There was nothing wrong with the girl right? She was just some new kid who for some reason or another had found a way to get on Lyoko without any of them, himself included, having the slightest clue that she was there. No big deal right?

As if to answer his question, Sarah whispered across the table as their teacher started towards the chalkboard, "Don't be so tense Jeremy. I'm a friend remember, not some monster or something."

Try as he might, Jeremy Belpois, who could still remember every detail about the classroom he had stayed in for half and hour during a tornado drill back in the first grade, could not remember one reason why this girl should call herself his "friend."

Keeping his eyes on the teacher, like a good student, Jeremy whispered over to Sarah, "What are you up to, really? There's no way you could know so much about us and Lyoko if we haven't seen you before today."

The girl laughed a little, stifling the sound behind her hand once again. Again Jeremy noticed a strange, foreign, and yet abstract _feel_ to the young girl's laugh, as well as how she repeated the exact same vocal quality of laughter as before. That small sound which he had heard so many times before seemed almost wrong coming from this girl's throat.

"Like I said Jeremy, I just didn't want you to see me until now, that's all. And if you must know, I found out about Lyoko on my own."

This time he turned to face her and asked, "How? When did you find-?"

"Jeremy!"

Turning back towards the teacher, Jeremy resumed his silent, straightforward stare, but not before noticing that Sarah was stilling smiling. And that the teacher had taken no notice of _her _what so ever.

"Hey Jeremy, guess what?"

Closing his eyes and stifling a sigh, Jeremy replied without looking at her, "What?"

He saw her smile widen in his mind. Somehow he knew that she was grinning madly before she even spoke again. And even from the mental image of that grin, Jeremy saw those plastic like teeth and that alien expression. God, what was wrong with this girl? So alien… but just how?

"We've got all our classes together. Isn't that cool?"

Jeremy hesitated. He wanted to ask how she knew that, since she'd never even laid eyes on his schedule, but for some reason he was afraid of the answer. And still she continued to smile.


	4. Dig In

**Chapter Four**

**Dig In**

Had things gone normally, or as normally as possible, for Aelita that day, she may have calmed down from her initial scare with the "new girl" and actually made an attempt to become acquainted with this mysterious stranger that had arrived on the scene. However, as things played out, the hours following the original, "real life" meeting with the girl only served to increase Aelita's paranoia and suspicion.

What truly served to cement her dislike of Sarah was how the girl had an apparent habit of stalking Jeremy. Not only did she seemingly have every one of his classes with him, a feat even Jeremy had not been able to pull off for Aelita, but even between classes she was constantly around him, always within earshot at least. Most of the time, however, she was right beside him, as if the two of them were an "item," as the term went. And always that alien, plastic smile was on her lips, her dazzling teeth shining. Jeremy looked, to Aelita, painfully aware of the girl's constant closeness, but completely unsure of what to do about it.

Her crowning achievement for that day came at lunch when Sarah took a seat next to Jeremy. No asking if it was ok, no comment, just slapped her butt down in the chair, again, as if she belonged there without a word. Aelita, who had been obviously approaching that same seat herself, saw Jeremy jump as if from an electric shock and stare at Sarah with the surprise of a man who wakes up to find a strange woman occupying his wife's pillow.

As if she couldn't see the look standing out on Jeremy's face, Sarah simply began to eat, her smile actually managing to remain glued to her face even as she stuffed spaghetti and bread into it. Jeremy, his mouth full of forgotten food and chewing absently at half speed, looked from her to Aelita and then back again.

_Do you see this crazy chick_, that look seemed to say,_ do you believe this?_

He swallowed and looked prepared to say something but Yumi reached over with her fork and tapped it on Sarah's plate to get her attention. The smiling red head looked up, her face the epitome of contentment.

"You know," Yumi said, speaking softly and patiently as one would to a child, "if you wanted to join us, you could have asked. It's not like we were planning on gunning you down or anything for speaking up."

"I was," Odd replied before slamming what looked like a baseball of rolled up spaghetti noodles into his mouth, which was already working on a slice of garlic bread as it was. Ulrich laughed.

Sarah, either ignoring Yumi's subtle suggestion or not caring to recognize it, said with a laugh, "I know that, but since guns aren't allowed at school, I knew I wouldn't have to worry about that to begin with." Then she burst out laughing, as if this had been the pinnacle of funny, the absolutely greatest joke in the world. Odd, who'd laugh at just about anything as long as it wasn't about his height and thickness, or lack thereof, or his dog, choked on his mouthful of food in surprise and began to cough in quick, short hacking gasps. For a moment, Aelita really thought he was strangling on the food his mouth had stretched to take in. Ulrich seemed to think the same thing and actually moved to get behind his friend and deliver the Heimlich maneuver.

Odd held up a hand to stop him, took a few deep gulps of food and air and then began to take delicate sips from his drink. And all through this Sarah laughed and laughed. The joke of the year it had been. Ha ha, pretty funny pal, you should do stand up.

At first, Aelita wanted to slap this laughing freak of a girl right across the mouth. Even her laugh, that beautiful, lovely sound that had so pleased Aelita's ears when she heard it for the "first" time after meeting Jeremy and her other friends, sounded false, mocking, and wrong here. It was the laugh a puppet might make if it were given life for a day and glimpsed the useless works humans strove so hard to complete in their short lives, or the laugh that a lost little boy hears when he's staring down the dark tunnel where the monsters hide. But that laugh wasn't the scariest thing.

What scared Aelita the most was the fact that no one was looking at them. No one noticed or cared about the hysterically laughing girl or the choking boy. Not a single eye had turned towards them since Sarah had been at the table.

Finally, the waves of laughter subsided and Sarah, her eyes wet with tears and her cheeks red, guzzled the rest of her own drink and rose from her seat.

"Oh Odd, you crack me up man!"

With that, she turned to dump her trash and leave the building, leaving the "jokester" that had cracked her up so in his seat, his eyes wet with tears of a different nature and his breath coming in shallow gasps. Aelita was still too shocked to realize that this was the first time Sarah had left Jeremy's side all day. She wouldn't have really cared, though, had she noticed.

Taking Sarah's seat, Aelita reached over and grabbed Odd's forearm lightly, asking, "Odd? You ok?"

He nodded, but slowly and hesitantly. Up close, Aelita saw that Odd was sweating profusely. His cheeks were enflamed and spaghetti sauce caked the corners of his mouth. His eyes were focused on the door Sarah had just exited, staring after her with an almost unnatural look of… what? Fear? Confusion? A kind of morbid curiosity? Odd's eyes swam with tears and emotion and seemed unnaturally large.

She shook him lightly and snapped the fingers of her other hand before those wide, staring eyes.

"Odd! Hey! You ok?"

"She knew it was coming. She knew... and she laughed."

Aelita frowned, and her grip on his arm tightened slightly.

"What did you say Odd?" Ulrich asking, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. Odd continued staring into space, his eyes focused on something that none of them could see. Then he said in barely a whisper, "She knows because she writes."

He shook his head and blinked. His eyes returned to normal as they focused on the others at the table, almost seemed to visibly shrink, and noticing his friends all staring at him, Odd smiled and said, "I didn't actually think there'd come a time when I'd bite off more than I could chew."

That got a nervous, little laugh from everyone and the atmosphere at the table lightened considerably. Everything was ok now. The bad, bad witch was gone and the five little children were left to their own devices again. The world was in order. Aelita didn't even think to ask about what he had said just a few moments ago.

"You had us scared there for a minute Odd," Ulrich said, "I was worried I'd have to break you're ribs making you hack up a wad of pasta."

"Oh really? What, you thought I could handle a stupid piece of bread and some spaghetti? I've eaten tougher things for breakfast, you know."

They laughed again, still going completely unnoticed by the rest of the cafeteria. The fog of suspicion Sarah had brought to the table was disappearing now.

Ulrich nodded and said, "That's true. Like that time you ate that frozen waffle cause you wanted the "life experience." Didn't you cut the roof of your mouth with that thing?"

And with that, things were back to normal. Lunch was in progress, and everyone was happy. Odd returned to demolishing the spaghetti that had tried to kill him, Ulrich and Jeremy continued taking shots at him about his little "brush with death," Aelita laughed, Yumi laughed, everyone was content. None of them, not even Aelita, happen to look out the window and notice the red headed girl standing outside, watching them. If she had, she might have wondered about the strange look on the girl's face. It was a look of confusion, a look of disbelief, a look of loneliness. But shining behind that confusion, that disbelief, that loneliness were rawer, deeper feelings.

For in that look was hate and fear. And sorrow.


	5. Final Note

**Final Author Note:**

It saddens me to say this but this story, along with all of my other unfinished ones, are hereby discontinued. No more chapters will be added, but the stories themselves shall remain up, along with my completed ones, for those who enjoy reading what is already present. But consider them all on permanent hiatus from now on.

And, though this may cause trouble later on, anyone who wishes to use any of my stories, both finished and unfinished, in any way (general allusion in a story of their own, completion, remake, etc.) may do so. All I ask is that you send me a message detailing how you will use the story and, at least for courtesy's sake, ask for permission to use it.

I ask, my friends, for your forgiveness in leaving these tales untold. I hate to quit halfway through a story but unfortunately other areas of my life demand my attention. I'm sorry. Good bye and good luck to all of you.


End file.
